Performance appraisal and merit-related pay could work as well for teachers as it does for professionals in industry, new research has claimed.

In a report - Milestone or Millstone? - Industry in Education suggests teachers have everything to gain and nothing to lose from the implementation of performance management.

The independent education body commissioned the research to encourage teachers and policy makers to adopt the more positive attitude it observed in industry.

Performance management
results in high performers feeling valued

Dr Dick Whitcutt

But the findings were dismissed by the National Union of Teachers (NUT) as contradicting the views of teaching professionals and experts.

Speaking to BBC News Online, the director of Industry in Education, Dr Dick Whitcutt said teachers should earn the same as a middle professional in industry, but must be prepared to accept performance appraisals.

"Performance management
results in high performers feeling valued and this fact almost universally
outweighs the disadvantages of some poorer performers preferring a uniform
system of reward.

"I cannot imagine a better outcome from a management system than one that
makes the best performers feel valued, particularly in a profession which
relies totally on the performance of its staff," Dr Whitcutt said.

Head teachers, who are paid as managers, must behave as such and sell the system to their staff, he added.

Contradiction

The report comes as the Trades Union Congress (TUC) backed the concerns of teaching unions and urged the government to drop its plans for performance related pay.

"The government has failed to recognise that young people are deterred from coming into education and that performance-related pay strengthens their refusal to consider education as a career for the future."

A spokesperson for the NUT told BBC News Online the Industry in Education report contradicted research commissioned by the union which found that performance-related pay in education would not work.